Love comes a knocking: Part I

Saturday awoke to a new day as I knew my love, BK was going to see me. I awoke feeling anxious but mostly excited that I would be meeting him in my new home. Indeed when we found each other at the subway station that tingling feeling inside was all over me and I didn't know whether to hug him or not in public.

I showed him my studio apartment we talked a bit, but then we went out to get me a cell phone. This time I was off with BK on a bus, because apparently it was a lot faster than taking the subway. Our Destination was TechnoMart.Imagine if you will a mall, now most malls (especially those in America) are laid out architecturally amongst a horizontal plan. Think about this for a moment, building a structure like this can fit a lot of stores in one space but it also consumes a lot of land. This precious commodity is something to be bargained for here in Seoul, so department stores that promise many stores in one area are packed into a structure that functions vertically. Horizontal space becomes Vertical.

To get from one area to the other, you can take two well known modes of vertical transportation:

The Escalator (google images)

and The Elevator

Technomart, Hyundai Department store and Emart (all places I have now visited) function on a vertical format. To get from one floor to the next you take the escalator or the elevator.

Each floor promises something different, for instance in Emart:

• Floor 1 is packaged food
• Floor 2 is kitchen and bathroom items
• Floor 3 is clothing
• Floor 4 is more clothing and jewelry
• Floor 5 has Electronics and school supplies (my fav)
• Sub-floor has the vegetables, fruit, cheese and other perishables.

When shopping in these places you don't walk from one end to the next, instead you plan your path from top to bottom or visa-versa. I find this aspect of architectural planning an intriguing use of space compared to America's use of space.

Cell Phone:

But the real reason we went to TechnoMart was to find myself a good yet cheap cell phone. BK did most, well all of the talking and got me a pretty sweet deal.

So cute! The salesman threw in the extras, like that clear case and a travel plug all for free.

Total cost: Purchase of the Sky phone was about $30 USD, Deposit about $30 and monthly service fee is approximately $12.

It has been a lot of fun being connected to a cell phone again. Yet the only person I have been contacting has been BK. Yet, I am sure my contact list will grow as time passes.

After the purchase we explored the building and found a grocery store below (Lotte Mart), which was a bit more expensive than Emart, so I only a bought a few things. Well TechnoMart you were pretty cool and I hope to come back someday when I fancy myself a large Plasma Screen Tv. ;)